I almost fired up a real F-16c tonight

[Groove]

Question to our RL maintainers:

 

When a jet need a spool up test, are there any maintainers allowed to spool the engine up? Or just pilots?

[Eddie]

Maintainers do it all the time, no need for a pilot. The only time a pilot is "needed" is when the aircraft is required to fly.

 

And when you consider that engine/apu runs are done as part of tests after replacing or repairing a component, which would have due to a snag reported by a member of the two winged master race when they landed, if we had to wait for a pilot to complete the testing jets would never be fixed. Do you really think you'll find a pilot anywhere around the squadron at 1am when it's dark, cold and raining? :D

 

Many pilots have absolutely no idea how their jets are fixed after they break them, or even what the systems the manual talks about actually look like.

Edited November 9, 2011 by Eddie

[mvsgas]

Question to our RL maintainers:

 

When a jet need a spool up test, are there any maintainers allowed to spool the engine up? Or just pilots?

 

AFAIK, What Eddie said. Not sure if on other Air Forces that is true. There might be some places where only pilots can run engines. I was talking to a helicopter mechanic (HH-60) a couple of weeks ago, for them, they can only run the engine in idle, if the main rotor blades moves at all they have to shut down. In my case, we can run the engine from idle to full power ( I'm doing that tomorrow, certifying engine run guys) Some aircraft you can only run "x" amount of engine ( 2 out of 4 ie) But like everything else it depends.

 

When referring to some systems (FCR. TGP, etc) that also depends. For example, Army mechanics ( the way I understand it) do everything; loading missiles, refueling, repairing sheet metal and so on, but don't touch radios. We are more divided. I can run an engine but we have engine specialist. I can inspect general conditions on Avionics, but we have Avionics specialist ( FCR, Flight controls, etc) we also have Electricians, weapons loaders, AMMO ( IYAAYAS, look it up :D), etc. Navy and USMC are also structure differently.

 

I need to learn how to make short and to the point answers. I should have just said; It depends, but for the most part, yes, maintainers are allowed to run engines and other systems."

[nscode]

Mechanics do it here too. And I remember those videos of Su-27 engine tests, those were mechanics also.

[Groove]

Thanks for the infos!

[Cali]

I was APU qualified on the A-10 and sit in on a bunch of F-16 engine runs to see if we fixed our system. Some might not like to sit in a F-16 for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours but I liked it.